Current Affairs Quiz - April 2022

Notes:
The venture capital fund (VCF) scheme was implemented by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to help aspiring entrepreneurs belonging to SCs and OBCs new businesses. As the performance of the scheme is not satisfactory, the Ministry is set to launch a “mentorship” programme.
Named the ‘Ambedkar Young Entrepreneur-Mentor’ (AYE-Mentor) programme, the IFCI Venture, which is the VCF manager, will empanel businessmen or heads of companies or veterans of banking and financial institutions, as ‘mentors’.

Notes:
‘Guidance’, the investment promotion agency, for winning the ‘Best Investment Promotion Agency Award’ in Asia Oceania Region at the Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) 2022.
It was an initiative of the Ministry of Economy of the United Arab Emirates. Guidance, the single-window facilitation wing of the Industries Department of Tamil Nadu, has played a significant role in presenting business opportunities in Tamil Nadu since 1992.

Notes:
‘Global Collaboration Advanced Vaccinology Training’ meeting was recently held in Geneva. In the meeting, the need for a basic vaccinology training module for healthcare personnel across the world was discussed.
India was represented by Dr N.K. Arora, head of the Covid-19 working group in the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NTAGI). The Group makes vaccine recommendations on the basis of disease burden, efficacy and cost effectiveness.

Notes:
The plenary body of Chile’s Constitutional Convention formally approved the Rights of Nature within its proposed constitutional text.
The Chilean people will now vote on the final version. After the vote, Chile could become the second such country in the world besides Ecuador.

Notes:
As per the ‘Hurun Richest Self-Made Women in the World 2022’, there are 124 self-made women billionaires in the world now, down 6 from last year.
Three Indian women – Falguni Nayar of Nykaa, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon and Radha Vembu of Zoho feature in the latest Hurun list of women self-made billionaires. Falguni Nayar overtook long-time India’s number one woman billionaire Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw to become the richest self-made woman in India.

Notes:
Ministry of Finance oversees the ‘Stand Up India Scheme’, which aims to promote entrepreneurship among women, Scheduled Castes (SC) & Scheduled Tribes (ST) categories, to help them in starting a Greenfield enterprise.
The scheme has completed six years and loans worth more than ₹30,160 crore have been sanctioned in the last six years. Over 1.33 lakh new entrepreneurs have been facilitated and more than 1 lakh women promoters have benefitted from this Scheme during the last six years.

Notes:
The Indian government appointed senior Indian Foreign Service officer Vinay Mohan Kwatra as the new Foreign Secretary.
The 1988-batch IFS officer is currently serving as Ambassador in Kathmandu since January 2020. He worked in Prime Minister’s Office from 2015 to 2017 and had served as India’s ambassador to France. Vinay Kwatra will replace the incumbent Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla.

Notes:
The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently released the Part C of its sixth assessment report. The main finding of the latest IPCC report is that the world must focus on reducing dependency on fossil fuel.
The report mentioned Kolkata in respect of shifting from private to public transport. It highlighted that the urban mobility transitions in Kolkata show interconnected policy as well as institutional and socio-cultural drivers for socio-technical change.

Notes:
The Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 by 12 countries and came into force in 1961. It aimed to demilitarize the Antarctic zone and establish it to be used for peaceful research activities. India signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1983.
Recently, the Union Earth Sciences Minister Dr Jitender Singh tabled the draft Indian Antarctic Bill, 2020.  It is the first domestic legislation with regard to Antarctica in India. It extends the jurisdiction of Indian courts to Antarctica. As many as 27 countries have domestic legislations on Antarctica.

Notes:
April 7 is observed as World Health Day, to celebrate the creation of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948 in the First Health Assembly.
WHO leads the celebration to discuss health-related issues and to draw attention to specific health issues. The theme for this year’s World Health Day is “Our Planet, Our Health”.